Sony’s FAQ About Firmware 2.40

Sony have put an FAQ up on their official blog answering questions that were raised by the two firmware videos. Here’s a taster of some of the questions:

Q: Will voice-messaging/private chat be featured in 2.40 as well? If not, can we expect to see this feature added in the future?

A: We are evaluating the opportunity to offer voice chat, but for this update, we wanted to focus on text messaging as the key priority for communications that our users have asked for.

Q: Can you use the web browser in game?

A: No, you must exit the game before browsing the internet.

Q: Will In-Game XMB come up during playback of PS2 games, Blu-Ray discs, and DVDs?

A:The XMB is an exclusive feature for PS3 game titles. Accessing the XMB during gameplay was the top request from our users, which we focused on for this update. However, we continually engage PS3 owners for feedback and will evaluate the opportunity to offer XMB access during movie playback in the future.

Q: Can we go to the display settings and change anything there in-game (resolution, input, etc)?

i am so gutted about the retrospective achievements. i don’t want to have to do all the uncharted challenges again. once was enough! i won’t even get started on metal gear on boss extreme emblem or getting 100% on gta…

It’s astonishing how easily some people are to please. If feel like this update brings the PS3 to just shy of my initial launch expectations and we can already see the beginning of year three on the horizon. Text messaging only? Xbox Live had universal chat and voice messaging 7 years ago.

Did everyone really only want text messaging? If we’re not vocal on this issue there’s a good chance you’ll never see voice messaging on the PS3.

I didn’t even know xbox live has been out for 7 years, seriously ?? Anyways, it hasn’t had universal voice chat, that only appeared with the introduction of xbox 360. You could send voice messages and chat within the game itself (using the game), but not voice chat while doing anything (not until the 360). The PS3 will have every feature that xbox live has, plus alot more, most likely before 3 years goes by. Sony is already waaaayyyy ahead of live in terms of how long it has been out. Xbox live = 7 years….PSN = NOT EVEN 2 YEARS (ALREADY HAS ALMOST EVERYTHING THAT LIVE DOES I CAN WAIT FOR VOICE CHAT CUZ THEY WILL BRING IT !

Voice chat was the only reason I cared about in-game XMB. If I’m going to stop and write a message, I don’t care if I quit the game really. No point writing a message during an online game anyway as you’re going to get shot/smashed/passed by or whatever. My main hope was in-game XMB voice chat, simply because so many developers seem incapable of getting it right. Only Resistance has had a good setup so far. COD 4 has no squad support for comms (and has poorer quality sound), Warhawk is PTT (apparently we have beta testers to “thank” for that), and numerous other games have either poor comms or no comms at all. If developers refuse to make use of the excellent benchmark set by Resistance, then I’d be keen to start a private chat with friends in the XMB before going into a game.

mpz, i think we have some legitimate reasons to be unhappy and while i understand why some things can’t be implemented i am still not gonna accept them not being there.
i’m just super annoyed because all the hard work everyone has put into their gaming will count for nothing or have to be redone to earn trophies. the fact that they can’t even implement achievements already existing e.g. resistance or uncharted is ridiculous. surely these were created with this in mind?

About the trophies thing, well now you guys have good reasons to go back and play some of those great titles ! Looks like i’ll be playing uncharted once again, i’ve always wanted a reason to do so
p.s. voice chat will come soon enough, Sony knows that we all want it !

Trigga_Tybalt: The reason the reverse will not work is to stop people from downloading someone else’s save file, and save files may not necessarily contain the required information anyway unless the game had trophy-like support (e.g. uncharted would have the required info, but you might have downloaded it from someone else, which destroys everything the trophies stand for)

Even if the save files were all encoded to let your PS3 know the original owner of the save for verification, which I guess it isn’t the case, some other game may have trophy like situations where you are awarded a gun, for example, but you could also have bought it from the game’s NPC merchant, and the game does not necessarily need to save that information.

And I am guessing trophies *will* be tied to your account and not your game saves, so even if you removed the game and your saves, your trophies would stick.

i have stopped playing mgs (and all single player) until the trophies are out. gonna have another crack at mgo tonight me thinks. props to the burnout devs for thinking ahead, i thought all other games were on the same page spesh uncharted. i read today that they are working on a patch for uncharted, hoping its retroactive as i hear those saves are locked?

Emrah, i completely understand and agree with what sony have done to stop hat but i thought more of the save files, like burnout for an example, would be locked to ID. it would indeed be lame if people could just download save files to cheat the system, i wonder how having save files just before you earn the trophy will work? lots of people planning to do that.